Story 5/16
The story of 5/16 began with the players beginning to lift the main gate to the keep of Thalstead . In preparation for an abmush, they placed a crate with 2 bodies on top of the ladder entrance to the top of the wall. They also positioned themselves ready for an attack. Klon and Khaelis begain lifting the gate, Erevan , Beorn , Monashe and Aeowyn prepared for the ambush, while Amaras's men began preparing to storm the caste (based on the note Hawkmoon had delivered). Shortly after they started lifting the gate, enemy sodliers attempted to enter from the ladder and were slowly making progress shifting the crate. Beorn decided to try and jump on top of the crate to weigh it down, but his giant fur coat hindered his prowess a bit and he couldn't fully make it on top. The soldiers below then attempted to light the crate on fire to burn through it. Shortly after the fire started, Klon and Khaelis were able to raise the main gate 6 feet which allowed Amaras's men to charge in. Once the crate burned through, the soldiers below threw a magically guided molotov coctail that hit Monashe and lit a small area on fire. 3 soldiers then came rushing out and cornered Monashe and Geistsabel. The group unloaded a volley of attacks on the 3, but Monashe sustained heavy damage being trapped by them. The rest of the group joined the fight just as 2 more men emerged from the ladder hole. The group sustained heavy damage, but was able to spread their attacks nice and even and take the soldiers out. At this point they could tell a massive fight was occuring in the main hall, so they decided to head there. The main hall had changed slightly from when they left earlier. The podium and the banners were still hanging, however there were now two cauldrons with blue smoke coming out of them. In the smoke the heroes could make out humanoid figures, and Klon recognized them as souls similar to the dream he had. Additionally, there were two pink crystal altars in front of the main door. The altars had skulls/sticks/sickles on top of them, and a blue arcanic energy was emitting from the altars and flowing towards the door. They also noticed the 3 brutes from earlier that were in the hall had grown significantly in size and stature and could now be classified as banes. They were leading force of roughly 100 new city guard (there were only 20 when the group was in the hall at first, which likely means the flanking forces came back into the main hall when the gate was lifted). Amaras had his force of 120 that had charged in to the main hall. Amaras cried out "take them out!". Klon decided it was his moment to shine, and rushed into battle. The group used choke points to their advantage and took each bane out 1 by 1 and prevented their vicious cascading attacks from every going off twice in a single round. With the banes dead, the new city guard was trapped and without any battle leaders so they fell to Amaras's men. Amaras was left with about 60 men. The group decided it was time for an extended rest, and they would pick back up with Amaras and the altars after a good nights sleep. <------------ Previous Session [[Story 5/22|Next Session ---------------------->]]